1. In Defense of Witchcraft

Comment #52586 by Aaron SF on June 27, 2007 at 11:16 am

Ok, who else wants to have sex with sam harris now?

2. Hitchens and Prager Debate

Comment #46278 by Aaron SF on May 30, 2007 at 6:37 pm

Yeessss... the idiocy comes from the universities... not the churches...

Did he redifine idiocy before this interview?

3. Another Christian Science Fair embarrasses itself

Comment #44812 by Aaron SF on May 25, 2007 at 10:34 am

But everyone don't you see? This is Biology... because it *proves* the age of the earth to be less than six thousand years! (what?) And that means it diproves evolution! (what?) and that means it proves the creation my... errr theorey!

So seee... it's related to biology by only five or six hundred leaps of logic (or one leap of faith) and therefore even though he was using the wrong materials in the wrong environment he still earned that first place ribbon (bible?) at the christian science fare.

4. The Colbert Report: The Intolerant

Comment #42115 by Aaron SF on May 17, 2007 at 4:22 pm

I can't understand how the intolerant tolerate the intolerance of their intolerance!

If America is a truely tolerant country isn't our job to accept the intolerance of the unaccepting intolerant? I mean the tolerant hypocrites are so accepting of the unacceptable it's intolerable.

I for one won't intolerate this intolerance of intolerance any more!

The intolerant tolarists must wake up and tolerate the intoleratable intolerance of the intolerant!

5. The stone is cast

Comment #41576 by Aaron SF on May 16, 2007 at 10:34 am

Nice Artical Mr. Wolfe.

Makes me ponder the moderate religious and their tolerance of this man.

6. The Creation Museum: Prepare to believe

Comment #41009 by Aaron SF on May 15, 2007 at 10:38 am

OH MY FRIGGIN somthin!!!! Why does the U.S.A Have to be so LAME!!!! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!!!!

Raptors frolicking with children??? Forget the time scale how about the fact that preditors aren't kid friendly!!! AAAAAGH!!!

*Cries* this is so bad... so bad.

7. Why Christopher Hitchens is not Great

Comment #40665 by Aaron SF on May 14, 2007 at 4:43 pm

So dumb... just so dumb... can't take the dumbness... AAAAGH!

8. Facing Off on Evolution

Comment #40647 by Aaron SF on May 14, 2007 at 4:11 pm

Well at least the network knows that a thoughtfull debate just won't go anywhere without a large breasted woman.

Does it add credibility to either side?

Yes. Yes it does.

9. Facing Off on Evolution

Comment #40601 by Aaron SF on May 14, 2007 at 3:06 pm

"Oh sweet Lord! Oh Jesus!

Lead me not into temptation, give the strength oh Lord to resist sin.

Tempt not me Satan with the sins of the flesh... oh Great God...

oh.. oh....

Oh Shit I'm an athiest. out of excuses then.

WOWZERS!"

satire:

Hey... stop parading your heterosexuality around in front of me. God I'm not judging you know. I mean live and let live, but could you just keep that sort of thing in the bedroom instead of shoving it in my face. :P

10. How dare you call me a fundamentalist

Comment #40569 by Aaron SF on May 14, 2007 at 1:46 pm

Wee Flee:

Thank you for making such a ridiculous argument against Dawkins' rebuttal. I really couldn't have done a better job coming up with really poorly defensible arguments if I had tried, and you have done a great job proving Mr. Dawkins' point for him.

Oh and as far as the "evidence" that Jesus was the son of god, died and resurrected etc...

Where is that?

Fundamentalism implies the refusal to stray from a doctrine no matter the proof. Dawkins is obviously not in this catagory, come up with a better argument.

11. Gene mutation linked to cognition is found only in humans

Comment #38985 by Aaron SF on May 9, 2007 at 5:12 pm

More More give me more! Onward to HUMAN MUTATION.

Now if they could just show that this trait is lacking in shrubs we might be better off here in the US.

12. Atheist offers to send letters post-Rapture

Comment #38869 by Aaron SF on May 9, 2007 at 11:12 am

"Damn! You came up with that before me!

Wouldn't that be great, you'd have idiots send you money every month and you'd never have to do anything but provide comforting re-assurances."

Why does this sound sooo familiar?...

13. Better God-fearing than sneering

Comment #38857 by Aaron SF on May 9, 2007 at 10:29 am

[quote] ...he does not know what it is like to be a born-again Christian or he would not expend so much sarcasm on the minutiae of Old Testament law. It is a tenet of evangelical Christianity that the incarnation, death and resurrection of Christ created a new covenant with the church, so they no longer believe that a man should stone his wife to death if she is not a virgin.
[/quote]

Well... I know what it's like to be a born again christian, and I'd still come to the same conclusion. So what does that mean?

"You don't know what it's like to believe really stupid things, so obviously they aren't stupid!"

This hurts my brain.

And about that new covenant... it's nice that all we have to do is "believe in jesus" and we don't have to be stoned for adultry (forget the people who don't believe in jesus) etc... really that's great. It's also nice that all Hitler had to do was believe in Jesus and poof... no reprecusion for mass genocide (not that God really dissaproves of mass genocide).

14. 'No proof Jesus heals Aids'

Comment #38502 by Aaron SF on May 8, 2007 at 11:46 am

Billy, yeah tell me about it. I just realised how useful some documented evidence of these programs would be so I've made it my pet project to hunt some down and I'll post a link as soon as I get something together.

There was a story by one woman on This American Life a few years back but since her trial (and settlement I believe) they've replaced the segment. They still mention it but only briefly in the radio archives... anyone who happens to have an origional please let me know.

http://thislife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?sched=703

15. An ecumenical contempt for religion

Comment #38336 by Aaron SF on May 7, 2007 at 4:35 pm

I think it would be perfectly sensible to believe that Mr. Shrub has no religious "convictions" of any kind and in fact just enjoys manipulating the masses of ignorant theists via proffessing such a belief.

Except for the fact that... he's not that smart.

16. 'No proof Jesus heals Aids'

Comment #37754 by Aaron SF on May 5, 2007 at 3:54 pm

Well I guess since Jesus just gave all us GAY people aids to punish us for being so GAY he probably could take it away if we'd just stop being GAY.

F@*$$ a@(#$$) @**#*$()$!

I know religious (tax exempt) programs that told gay people they had AIDS when they didn't so they could get them to come back to god (and stop having gay sex) and get blood tests to show they were cured.

The result was these unfortunate people were put on medications because they didn't get a second opinion and went through serious physical trama as a result.

What is it with this week and me and angry homo issues? And I seem to be getting angrier, maybe I should take a break and go post on a knitting forum for a while.

17. For Motherly X Chromosome, Gender Is Only the Beginning

Comment #37439 by Aaron SF on May 4, 2007 at 1:00 pm

That is so cool.

18. Bonobos and chimps 'speak' with gestures

Comment #37366 by Aaron SF on May 4, 2007 at 7:57 am

Bonobo's Rock!

19. Christians and Atheists to Debate Existence of God in First-Ever 'NIGHTLINE FACE OFF'

Comment #37172 by Aaron SF on May 3, 2007 at 2:52 pm

I feel naive now. My first thought was "Oh joy... an actual debate, how can Atheists loose!?"

But it's on TV and you have an Actor on the "God Exists" side. Why do you have an actor on that side? For ratings? Can't be to lend credibility.

I'll pretend to be optimistic 'till I watch it.

20. Richard Dawkins in the Time 100

Comment #37095 by Aaron SF on May 3, 2007 at 11:21 am

Congrats RD.

Granted Time did put Bush on the cover once. :P

So I'm much more proud of the RDF than the Time 100 list.

Speaking of wich, can we no-longer use "RDF" for Richard Dawkins Fan now that it's the RD Foundation?

21. When Seeing Is Disbelieving

Comment #37069 by Aaron SF on May 3, 2007 at 10:27 am

"I am frequently challenged "Where's the proof". Well here it is:

http://www.creationontheweb.com/content/view/4172/"

Um a) I asked you to please try and argue your own point. It's not that I mind reading quotes from other people it's just that I have a lot more respect for someone who thoroughly understands their own perspective, it's flaws etc...

And b)The quote from the website...

"In 1785, before examining the evidence, the deist James Hutton, 'the Founder of Modern Geology', proclaimed:

'the past history of our globe must be explained by what can be seen to be happening now … No powers are to be employed that are not natural to the globe, no action to be admitted except those of which we know the principle' (emphasis added)"

All he is saying is you can't calculate incalulateable evidence to support anything.

Saying "Well some God did it" to any part of your theorey that's lacking negates the need to even come up with a theorey at all. And which god? And which supernatural power? and how are we supposed to measure supernatural things?

All he's really saying is you can't measure what you can't measure. You can hypothosise all you want but it won't every get around to being a testable theorey until it's testable.

And I put my first point forward again. To a large degree the sciences are independant. A Geologist might hold to the theorey of evolution but it's not going to stop him from publishing findings that disprove it. If someone could actually prove the age of the earth was (like creationists say) less than ten-thousand years old, that would be HUGE! No Scientist I know of would pass that up or refuse to submit the findings for peer review.

22. When Seeing Is Disbelieving

Comment #36895 by Aaron SF on May 2, 2007 at 5:09 pm

devolved, Thank you for making this thread rather more interesting.

Please enjoy these responses to some of your statements

"Perhaps a belief in evolution is an example of a psychological capacity that allows us to ignore what is right in front of our eyes."

By all means, please divulge what about evolution is dilluded as implied by this statement.

"1 I believe in evolution
2 I interpret data to fit my beliefs
3 My interpretation of the data is presented as proof of what I belive."

And I think you have this backwards. The scientific method is more along the lines of.

1 I have an idea
2 I test everyway possible (to me) to verify or deny the validity of it
3 I present my idea and my data (weather proving or disproving or inconclusive) to the scientific community so they can scrutinize both.

Wash rinse repeat.

What you discribed was essentially the problem with theism. I mean it's actually the difference between theism and science. Assuming you are right and making the data match is about the most unscientific thing you can do.

"GTE" makes very specific testable statements about how species evolve. Were those statements untrue they would be easily debunked. For instance the amount of time it takes species to evolve requires that the earth be a little bit older than previously assumed. That's great, but the geologists didn't say "oh hey lets come up with some evidence for evolution!" they came to their conclusions about the age of the earth independantly and Evolution happened to fit that evidence better than any other theorey we have.

Just a little more responding/ranting stay with me please.

"2 On every single occasion that I examine a living thing I discover through science that it has come from a previously existing living thing."

And notice how none of them were DESIGNED by the living thing they came from?

3 I choose not to exclude the possibility of an intelligent designer.

No one excludes this possibility. We just don't regard it with any more plausibility than we would any other completely unverifiable idea (of which evolution is not one)

"4 I discover that the very same data, evidence etc that that everyone looks at better fits a different pardigm."

Please divulge more on this point, but I would really respect it more coming from you then from a referenced source. If we were going to play that game I would just refer you to The Blind-Watchmaker and Climbing Mount Improbable.

5 I make this suggestion to people who don't like to debate that idea.

Do we seem like we don't enjoy debate? If anything I think this thread proves some of the members are dying for one.

We can all comment on the article in due time I suppose.

23. In Ducks, War of the Sexes Plays Out in the Evolution of Genitalia

Comment #36803 by Aaron SF on May 2, 2007 at 11:16 am

"In the fall, the genitalia will disappear, only to reappear next spring."

They probably just get reabsorbed or stored or something. I mean if you have a phallus the size of your body I could imagine a cold climate being rather dangerous.

___________________________

EWWW hetero Duck-sex! :P

24. 4 Sermon for Matins: 'Dawkins and The God Delusion'

Comment #36529 by Aaron SF on May 1, 2007 at 12:35 pm

Oh that's right! I keep forgetting this is a sermon not a debate or an official argument!

That means it doesn't *have* to make any sense in order to be taken seriously by the audience. It just has to come from behind a pulpit.

Silly me.

25. 4 Sermon for Matins: 'Dawkins and The God Delusion'

Comment #36521 by Aaron SF on May 1, 2007 at 12:09 pm

"Being a Christian for me is much more like being a character in The Complete Works of Shakespeare than a scientist in a laboratory."

Such a true statement.

I'm sorry this was just very poorly argued. I admire the lack of foaming at the mouth mind you.

And even if you have found a nice moderate stance on Christianity, it doesn't excuse the religion. I mean the fact that you only pick bits and pieces of ur text and then have to reinterperate a lot of those (shakespear) in order to even appear morale... doesn't that worry you?

26. 'god is not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything' by Christopher Hitchens

Comment #36257 by Aaron SF on April 30, 2007 at 4:47 pm

WooooooW! Another well thought out criticism of atheist text... oh wait. He didn't really seem to understand the text.

It seemed to me that the review was "I don't understand what Christopher Hitchens is trying to say but it's been said before and I'm sure only atheists care. And why doesn't he try to make friends with everyone?"

Bleigh. Religion can't fight science other than to shut it up. That's why such a violent reaction to statements that are basically just a string of facts with a very obvious conclusion. I think everyone can see how obvious that conclusion is.

27. New Noah's Ark ready to sail

Comment #36214 by Aaron SF on April 30, 2007 at 2:00 pm

I love the Rainbow promise...

post genocide the traumatized inhabitants of the ark (what did the preditors eat?) emerge and God says... "Hey.. how bout that flood, yeah... sorry bout that ummm Here's a rainbow to show I'll never do it again... WITH WATER MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! Next time it will be FIRE!!! MUAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

The fabricated ark could lead to...

A religious theme park... if it's a Fundamentalist Christian theme park... I dunno wouldn't that be kinda boring.

You could have different rides for every book of the bible... like the book of Ruth... *snore*

OR I know you could have like Rape and Insest Land, or Divine Judgement bumper cars...

A "Small World" ride themed around all the nations the Isrealites supposedly slaughtered in gods name.

I guess that would be kind of eye-catching at least.

28. God Is in the Dendrites

Comment #35487 by Aaron SF on April 27, 2007 at 10:53 am

"When Richard Dawkins, author of The God Delusion, put on the hood, it only made him a little dizzy. Persinger was quick to note that Dawkins had scored way below average on a psychological questionnaire measuring temporal lobe sensitivity—hints of a neurobiological correlate for atheism."

Um a psychological questionaire measuring temporal lobe sensitivity? Why do I worry that one of the questions could have been "do you believe in god." but I'm going to trust that Dawkins wouldn't put up with that. Love to hear more, maybe they can get the questionaire on this site or something?

29. Iran arrests 300 'insufficiently veiled' women

Comment #35350 by Aaron SF on April 27, 2007 at 12:44 am

I think it's kind of funny that the "right wing" iinfluences I hear criticize a lot of the same things I see on this site.

Hippies, political correctnessl, cultural reletivism. etc...

30. Iran arrests 300 'insufficiently veiled' women

Comment #35233 by Aaron SF on April 26, 2007 at 4:22 pm

Anti-vice police — many of them women — have been stopping women in the streets of the capital and other cities if they deem their dress is "un-Islamic."

This is the scariest part to me. I mean when men enforce sexism it's gross and destructive, when women do it it's abhorent.

Richard Gere? How about the USA 2004 presidential election?!

"Ignore that war that's not going so well, and the failing economy, and my pay raise, and look how I'm protecting society from the immorality of the gays."

F@*$ load of crap.

Maybe religiously inspired moral panic is just a way for people in power to control the masses?

31. We aim to misbehave

Comment #35223 by Aaron SF on April 26, 2007 at 3:50 pm

So glad you don't know who Dr. Laura is. That's actually encouraging.

She's beem a North American phenomenon for the past 30 years.

I'm pretty sure she doesn't mean it as a compliment.

http://www.drlaura.com/main/

32. We aim to misbehave

Comment #35204 by Aaron SF on April 26, 2007 at 2:57 pm

Yeah but an atourney might want the jury to be more sympathetic one way or the other.

Dr. Laura uses the term Feminista. I don't know the etimology of that.

33. Was Muhammad Epileptic?

Comment #35192 by Aaron SF on April 26, 2007 at 2:19 pm

Satire.

"Yeah those muslims are as bad as the mormons! Can you believe they all think some guy who claimed god talked to him was right just because he said so!? I mean come on... now back to the book of revelations."

Ok it's not satire, it's stuff people actually say.

34. We aim to misbehave

Comment #35158 by Aaron SF on April 26, 2007 at 12:12 pm

I didn't catch the Firefly/Serenity reference. Whee.

35. We aim to misbehave

Comment #35142 by Aaron SF on April 26, 2007 at 10:33 am

I love this article and the analogy to womens rights.

Feminazi? Yes, that's right because women are rounding up men into forced labor camps and gassing them. :P

I think hypocrite is too nice of a word for the religious right when they start telling other people not to be so zealous.

****

Fanusi. I think I understand what your saying here. But I think your concept of minorities is a bit off.

Victimizing? It sounds like you think the major argument of minority politics is "Don't hurt me! Pitty me!"

The Atheist movement or whatever you want to call it would be very lucky to be included in the same camp as the Civil Rights, Womens Lib and Gay Rights movements. All of which are about telling people to start looking at reality and stop telling yourself a fairy tale about how the world is.

36. Jesus 'Love-Bombs' You

Comment #34915 by Aaron SF on April 25, 2007 at 3:04 pm

Eiighgh....

Friggin scary.

Again it's so nice to hear these familiar stories portrayed as they are and not as some "amazing miracle camp that brought me closer to god."

This one time at a friends church the pastor had everyone stand up and then told everyone who was not a christian to raise their hand. Then he told everyone to turn to the people next to them and ask them if they believed in Jesus.

Then he said if someone didn't (believe in Jesus) and was just too afraid to raise their hand, to ask them (and the hand raisers) if they wanted to accept Jesus as their personal savior.

Then he said if they didn't want to to ask if they would still like to be prayed for.

Then he told everyone to bow their heads (including the hand raisers) and repeat a prayer after him. "Dear jesus..." etc...

I was so pissed. I just kept my head up and glared at him, then I sat down just to make it clear that I wasn't participating.

How F(*$*ing manipulative. Why don't you just point a gun at someones head and say if they don't ask Jesus to become their lord and savior they will be shot on spot.

37. Shout your doubt out loud, my fellow unbelievers

Comment #34613 by Aaron SF on April 24, 2007 at 5:08 pm

Beautifully written.

The part about how church attendance has driven churches to more acceptance cracks me up.

As a homo I find I'm always a little skeptical when I see whole denomonations jump ship before it goes down.

38. Sex, Love, and SSRIs

Comment #34557 by Aaron SF on April 24, 2007 at 1:32 pm

I think Cognitive therapy has benefits, but it works from the perspective of a semi-properly functioning brain, so I think a lot of people require it in combination with medication.

Annecdote number 049492302

I started to take Flauxetine for non-depression related reasons about a year ago (anxiety OCD etc...). The effectiveness on those symptoms has been imense and I honestly don't like thinking about how I percieve the world without SSRI's but there have been side-effects.

One of which is short bursts of pretty severe depression for a few hours after taking the medicine. Go figure.

The thing is if your brain isn't balancing chemicals correctly it's not like you can just hit the 'balance now button', for a lot of people it comes down to a lesser of two evils and some hope that science will give us more precise/effective answers in the future.

Or y'know pray to the lord for forgiveness and he shall heal you...

This is a little bit off topic but I've often wondered about the link between OCD's/Anxiety and a religious up-bringing. Some people have asked if maybe OCD is the result of 'filling the religion void'. I kind of wonder if it isn't quite the other way around?

I mean think about the concept of sin. It's a link between a devastating consiquence and an arbitrary action. "If you don't cut your hair your going to hell!!" etc...

Sounds a lot like some of the mental processes of OCD to me.

I was raised religious, I mean learning that train of thought at a young age, it would be surprising if it didn't stick with you.

Anyone know of studies on this?

39. Street Evangelist Saves 300 Souls From Enjoying Park

Comment #34191 by Aaron SF on April 23, 2007 at 1:27 pm

I think the confusion about this being an onion artical is kind of funny.

But it's also kind of understandable. I live in SF CA (hence the name) and I've seen this sort of thing. More accurately I *see* this sort of thing weekly if not daily. There are lots of crazy people in SF (me for instance) but the religious nutz are given a breadth that others aren't. You can stand on a soap box in union square and scream at complete strangers through a megaphone that they are "sinners" and "damned to eternal fire..." and "must repent..." etc... and the civil authorities just walk by.

I dunno, I think someone yelling hateful remarks at strangers for an hour or two constitutes a civil disturbance no matter how ridiculous the claims. But I also want that whole free speach thing to keep goin.

40. Pope abolishes limbo

Comment #34161 by Aaron SF on April 23, 2007 at 12:07 pm

In 1984, when Benedict headed the Vatican's doctrinal enforcement body as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, he said he was "personally" in favour of scrapping the 13th-century notion, which he termed a mere "hypothesis."

LMAO!... Ok as apposed to the well tested theorey of the divine lineage of Jesus Christ.

"We cannot know with certainty what will happen" when an unbaptised baby dies, said panel member Paul McPartlan.

"But we have good grounds to hope that God in his mercy and love looks after these children and brings them to salvation," he said, quoted by the Catholic News Service.

Wow... grounds to hope. How cool. I'm sorry what grounds do you need in order to hope again? Oh yeah... NO grounds whatsoever.

This is probably the sillyest/funniest thing I've heard from the Pope. I don't understand how religious people who profess belief in something without evidence (and call it "faith") can turn around and pretend to have a debate about anything. Doesn't it just come down to... "Well I believe..." "Yeah well I believe..."

41. Atheists split on how to not believe

Comment #34151 by Aaron SF on April 23, 2007 at 11:21 am

I think the scary part of this is how quickly Epstein turns on Atheists in support of the religious right.

Maybe he doesn't think that's what he's doing, but in all fairness, the really scary religious have been attacking everyone unabashedly for a good many centuries, even *if* Atheists were now being as rash, it seems like it would be good for a balance of views if nothing else.

The impression I got was that he likes being a Humanist in a predominantly religious society and he doesn't want anyone rocking his now comfortable boat.

And just on intuition I'm going to go out on a limb and say he actually doesn't want religious views challenged, cus deep down maybe he still wants to be a good little somethingerother...

Also, I didn't know I was a 'New Atheist'. I thought I was just an Atheist. Am I wrong about this? Anybody?

42. Believing Scripture but Playing by Science's Rules

Comment #33254 by Aaron SF on April 19, 2007 at 5:53 pm

I think it's important to keep someones activities and beliefs sepperate. There are pleanty of well educated people who would support all sorts of crap, but they have degrees.

The degree is a measure of what you've done not what you think. You can think about a paper all you want but it won't matter till you've written it.

The danger here is that he gives the impression that his education backs his other "Paradigm" when in reality they are in direct conflict.

But lets really think about this... aside from political and media advantage what does this really lend him? Yes I cringe when I see "so-in-so", a scientist with a PHD in "etc", supports ID.

But the inherent flaw of ID and creationism is that they are dead ends. They don't go anywhere. You can use the scientific method all you want but if you try to rule evolution out of your thinking your not going to make a very successful or reputable biologist. And if you try to contest that the age of the earth is greater than 10,000 years. You aren't going to be able to do much as a geologist, not progressively.

If he winds up making a contribution to science it will be from a framework of entirely the first "paradigm" and therefore not really going to make his other ideas more credible at all.

One great effect of working with the truth (or the closest thing we can come to it) is that it WORKS BETTER.

I don't think Creationism or ID can survive in fields that they conflict with. Though I'm sure you could be a succesful mathematician who doesn't believe in evolution.

So if he gets extra credit for his degree it will be short lived, and when he gets to be around seventy and he has nothing to back him up but his degree and some blip on the 700 club, we can all smile as he fades away unnoticed.

43. Who Needs Sex (or Males) Anyway?

Comment #33209 by Aaron SF on April 19, 2007 at 3:01 pm

This is, of course interesting, but isn't it expected that there will be some variation from mutation and environmental selection? I mean earliest life forms didn't rely on sexual variation but somehow they got to it?

My understanding of sexual reproduction is that it's a significant advantage in evolution but not the sole driving factor. So shouldn't this be a case of one species against one hundred thousand species?

I mean I guess I'm asking why this is news and not just expected. I must be missing something.

Maybe someone can enlighten my puny little brain.

44. Kadra attacked in public

Comment #32541 by Aaron SF on April 17, 2007 at 10:31 am

Wow, I mean wow.

I think the really scary part was this...

"I was terrified. While I lay on the pavement they kicked me and screamed that I had trampled on the Koran. Several shouted Allah-o-akbar (God is great) and also recited from the Koran," Kadra told VG."

Ummm... You insulted our holy book now you must die? Because our god is so great he can't survive people questioning or dissobeying him.

Where have I heard that before?

For everyone who calls Atheism a Religion, or says Atheists are dogmatic... I don't think I've ever heard of one instance where someone was ATTACKED or murdered by atheists for being too religious.

It's so f*&#ing scary. I mean what happens when these people get access to more political power?

Oh yeah, we know that, they invade Iraq and try to stop stem cell research.

45. Aids Victims Risk Lives

Comment #31420 by Aaron SF on April 12, 2007 at 3:03 pm

"it is a FACT that HIV does not cause AIDS"...

Ummm... no it's not.

http://www.avert.org/evidence.htm

46. When They Came for the Homosexuals...

Comment #30061 by Aaron SF on April 6, 2007 at 3:43 pm

"These christians are right! to be a good christian you should persicute and hate gays as this is what the bible says and as we all know the bible is the word of god!"

Let's put it this way, the Bible says we (gay people) are an abomintation unto God and should be stoned to death (I believe that's it).

The only reason modern Christians don't stone the first gay person they see is because Jesus died to save them from their sins.

So unless your a born again "cured" homosexual, or show some potential to be one... by the majority of Fundamentalist Christian world view... you're better off dead. And they're better off with you dead.

There is a distinct way that christians interact with someone they view as a potential "sale" and how they interact with a "lost cause"

The hatred of homosexuality has the buffer of the new testament to hold back the violence of SOME christians, but even the good majority of them wouldn't hesitate to lock all the gay people away somewhere. Like an Asylum or a Camp or something.

I'm generalizing but not by much. Most Christians wouldn't personaly engage in oppression and segragation of gay people, but how many would try and stop it?

47. Is God a Delusion?

Comment #30048 by Aaron SF on April 6, 2007 at 11:29 am

I think one of the points of religion is to make the Good vs. Evil thing simple. Turn it into a duality. I think that's part of where the danger is in religion, once problems are simple, sollutions are simple ("Off with their heads!!!")

I am listening right now, and I have to say I'm a bit underwhelmed with the Theist and the Agnostic.

But also a little dissapointed in the Atheist.

I don't think he's very good at debate.

The Theist is a PR guy, and the Agnostic just seems to like feeling superior (laughing at someones argument is a really low thing to do in a conversation).

48. Controversial Religious Summer Camp Closed

Comment #29891 by Aaron SF on April 5, 2007 at 11:11 am

Hurray!!! Lets hope they don't just get sent to the *other* Jesus camp down the street.

Seriously I hope some of the negative reaction was from the parents of these kids.

49. Surviving 'Jesus Camp'

Comment #29795 by Aaron SF on April 4, 2007 at 7:09 pm

This article caught me. Not because of the horrendous abuse the kids are being subject to, that was all too familiar.

What caught me was the fact that this was being called abuse.

I was one of those kids, and I can testify that this is not isolated at all. I grew up in San Diego, California and the religious movement there is down-right scary.

But when I was a kid I didn't think... "Oh I'm being abused." Y'know what I thought?

I thought "Gee, I hope God thinks I'm worthy enough to make me a martyr some day."

That's right, I hoped that God in his infinite wisdom would find me fit to be MURDERED to make a point to other people.

Even though I've known for some time that all that stuff was twisted and seriously damaging, I didn't, until reading this article, actually comprehend that it WAS child abuse. That making a kid think they are evil to the core and need to repent for whatever that evil is (they might have no clue, but children have good imaginations, they can come up with something)... it's sadistic!!!

Not only should adults KNOW better, they should be fighting this kind of abuse.

It's a rape of the mind! What's the point of "protecting" children from violence or sexual content, and then turning around and doing this to them?

Is there a morality rating for Churches? This church is CHMA, don't send your children here unless you want them to be seriously F'cked up?

And as a side note, it doesn't matter how that woman meant what she said, it matters how the kids took it. That's why you have to watch what you actually do and say, not what you intend to mean.